Monday, August 30, 2010

A really powerful and gripping account of prison life (warning: it's pretty graphic sometimes, especially when he describes how inmates compensate for the inefficiency of homemade "shanks"; there's also some bad language).

Yet another study indicates that moderate alcohol consumption is probably good for you. (The headline is a little misleading: of the people studied, moderate drinkers live longest, followed by heavy drinkers, followed by non-drinkers.)

I've been blogging for about 4 years and eight months. At a thousand posts, that's about one post every 1.7 days on average. My longest hiatus was six weeks in May and June of this year. Except for that, I think I've posted at least once almost every week since I started.

Why do I blog? That's a good question. It's not for popularity; I've had around 85,000 total page loads, which is less than some popular blogs get in a day. It's definitely not for the money; I've earned $5.02 from ads on this site (not even enough to get paid yet).

I guess I blog mainly for two reasons. The first is self-expression. I like to write. It feels good to try to say something, to try to express humor, or sorrow, or outrage. It feels even better when it works, when I've made someone else feel the same way (or the opposite way).

I don't think I'm especially good at writing. I'll never be more than a hack. But I have improved a lot. Compared to what I could do 10 or 20 years ago, my writing is a lot better now. When I read my old, pre-blog stuff, I often cringe. I rarely cringe at what I write now. Practice makes better, I guess.

The other reason I blog is that it's a form of human contact. It's a way to interact with people. I know people all over the world from blogging. Since I find making and keeping friends IRL to be a real struggle, that's very important to me.

Anyway, what I really want to say with this post is "Thank you." Thank you for reading. Thank you for commenting. Thank you for linking. It means a lot to me. It really does.

Monday, August 23, 2010

I don’t consider myself to be too much of an optimist. Honestly, i can be a little fatalistic sometimes. But i do hope to live for a very very long time (wouldn’t mind being immortal too!). This world is so HUGE and i want to see as much of it as possible and experience all that i can!

She reminds me a lot of Anne Frank, actually. And of this, from Tolkien: "The young perish and the old linger, withering." Fuck death.

I don’t feel odd writing this. Just… so mature. I’m 17 going on 18, the age you’ll be when you read this for the first time. I don’t know how I’ll be then. Sometimes cranky, over-worked, cynical, the way I see my parents are today. But I don’t want you to see only that me. Maybe I’ll be hardworking, happy and eccentric. For you, I want to preserve some of my ideas, my optimism and my ideals. I want you to meet me, at your age, so many years from now. Beware… I was considered boring, by some.

Right now I’m changing. In small ways, and big. I’ve seen a certain amount of heart break (no doubt I’ll see more) and a great deal of love, more than I could ever wish for. My morals, my ideals, my resolutions, my wants and my beliefs are being formed, being broken, and, formed again with a stronger base. I want to be the President of India. I want to take 6 months off before college. I want to be the most powerful person on earth. I want to spend the rest of my life helping the poor. I want to adopt a girl and I know this is one resolution that won’t be broken. So you’re the one… It’s wonderful to meet you.

"America is the world fashion leader," said Steven Kolb, director of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, the lead trade group in support of the Schumer bill, "and yet it is basically the only industrialized country that does not provide protection for fashion design."

Run that by me one more time? We’re the world leader in fashion, so we should change our policy to mimic our lagging competitors?

Here are some links about Park51, the "Ground Zero mosque" (which, of course, will actually be two blocks away from the "hallowed ground" of Ground Zero [future home of commercial office buildings and a shopping mall] and is more community center than mosque).

Photos of the "hallowed ground" the same distance from Ground Zero as Park51: "The blocks around Ground Zero are like every other hard-working neighborhood in New York, where Muslims are just another thread of the city fabric."

"This campaign is nothing different than all of the standard, definitively bigoted efforts to hold entire demographic groups of people responsible for the aberrational acts of a small percentage of individual members."

Homophobia: the gift that keeps on giving... giving unintentional comedy gold that is. I couldn't quite work this into my earlier post on Mormon WATBism, but I feel I would be remiss if I didn't point out these three (unintentionally)hilariouscomments from reaction-formation poster boy Christopher Bigelow.

It takes a little different tack though. It's all about how divisive the campaign and its aftermath have been... among Mormons. (Surprise! ...not!) From the post:

"I have family and friends in California, all of them pro 8, and they all had pretty much the same reaction. They participated in a sort of unpleasant, grim business, necessary, but grim nonetheless. And now they all feel a sense of ambivalence about it, and some of them even regret and sadness. They almost all describe their experience working in the campaign as horrible and traumatic, even hellish, and something they wish to never be called upon to do again. It was a Pyrrhic victory, and it had costs to our people far beyond the millions of dollars we donated.

"I hear reports that many of our wards in California are still fractured and split along lines that developed in the campaign. One friend described almost with a sense of despair her frustration at the division that prop 8 caused in her ward, her family, and even in her marriage."

Friday, August 13, 2010

Terror Babies! Oh noez! The funniest thing you can ask someone who believes something with no evidence is, "What evidence do you have for that?" as proved by Anderson Cooper and Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Crazytown). Watch the video. You won't regret it.

Since I spent yesterday evening making this video instead of writing, I thought I might as well post it here. It's a backwards-facing "helmet cam" video I made with my six-year-old daughter. (Said helmet cam consisting of one bike helmet, one long stick duct-taped to the helmet, and one Canon PowerShot duct-taped to the stick.)

It's not meant to be a finished product or anything, just a "proof of concept," so it has no ending and it's a little sloppy in terms of technique. Mostly, I wanted to see if I could get the dang thing to work. But it actually came out a lot better than I expected. I think the helmet cam has a lot of potential. (Especially if I can convince my daughter to wear it outside of our backyard. I'm still working on that part.)

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Taunting Muslims FAIL: Rightwing blogger thinks that opening a gay bar next to the (two blocks away from) "Ground Zero" mosque (and community center) would be a good way to taunt Muslims for doing something he doesn't like. Only problem is, there are already three gay bars closer to the planned mosque than the mosque is to Ground Zero. FAIL.

Words. I was going to explain this video, but I think it's even better when you figure it out yourself.

The most important thing to remember about doping is that it works. It works like hell. It can make mediocre athletes good, good athletes elite, and elite athletes great. It's almost impossible to win without doping in a sport where there is widespread doping. In fact, if the doping is widespread enough, it's almost impossible even to compete at a high level without doping.

Here's what I believe about cycling and the Tour de France:

In terms of doping, cycling is just about the dirtiest sport in the world, and the Tour de France, a grueling, superhuman test of endurance, is the dirtiest event. It has a culture of doping that dates back more than a century. It's rife with banned athletes and trainers. Entire teams have been banned en masse for doping. Winners of the most prestigious events have been caught and banned. Former competitors confess and accuse left and right.

Cooking with Dog (it's not what you think) is probably the best Japanese cooking channel anywhere.

This WSJ article about Japanese companies switching to English is fairly interesting in itself, but this is my favorite part:

By contrast, a group of online grammar sticklers has emerged at Rakuten that enjoys correcting [CEO] Mr. Mikitani's English. "Let's stop discussing about our policy to convert our main language to Eng. We are going to do this to become strong global company," Mr. Mikitani tweeted after his Twitter account was flooded for days with discussion of the company's language policy.

He revisited the issue four days later, writing: "Well I think many native people use 'discuss about.' At least my friends at Harvard did. How good is your English??"

It's just so typical of my experience with "important" people in Japan: defensively insisting that he's right, even when he's wrong. Though, of course, that's probably pretty typical of "important" people everywhere (and plenty of "unimportant" ones too).

There's a curious meme I've noticed running through some of the debate on gay marriage. It comes from some of the more thoughtful people opposing (or even just leaning towards opposing) gay marriage. It's the idea that gay people in this debate are "intolerant."

I've been noticing this for quite some time, probably ever since the aftermath of the passage of Proposition 8 in California, when so many Mormons seemed to react with shock at the idea that people would actually be angry at them for outlawing their marriages. And just today, through Andrew's post, I'm seeing it again. (Not in Andrew's post, but in posts he links to and in comments.)

Symphonyofdissent is "uncomfortable with the labeling of people of conscience as bigots and homophobes" and "sick of the lack of effort to build consensus on common ground and to efforts to punish and smear those that disagree." SilverRain feels that gay marriage advocates' "aggressive behavior has already done more to hurt [their] cause than help it" and they call people bigoted and homophobic in an "attempt to manipulate through shame, to control another person's behavior." In short, as commenter Scotty Starnes puts it, "the gay community’s intolerance is also a factor when it comes to others accepting their lifestyle."

The Motels were one of the most successful New Wave bands to come out of L.A. during the 1980s. They were fronted by the luscious Martha Davis, a beautiful woman with a lovely voice. They had four Top-50 albums and two singles that reached #9 on the charts. Their popularity made them a little unusual among the bands I listened to.

Another thing that made them unusual among the New Wave bands I listened to was that their songs were actually pretty. They tended towards haunted, melancholy love ballads rather than the more up-tempo sounds that I usually preferred. In fact, their two biggest hits, "Only the Lonely" and "Suddenly Last Summer," were more Adult Contemporary than New Wave. I pretended not to notice.

By now I assume that you've already heard that a Federal judge ruled that Proposition 8, the California ballot measure outlawing same-sex marriage, is unconstitutional. I think this is good news, of course, although there are several appeals still to come. (I'm not a lawyer, but my understanding is that it will probably go to a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, then to a larger panel or full panel of the same court, then to the US Supreme Court.)

Here's the conclusion first:

Proposition 8 fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license. Indeed, the evidence shows Proposition 8 does nothing more than enshrine in the California Constitution the notion that opposite-sex couples are superior to same-sex couples. Because California has no interest in discriminating against gay men and lesbians, and because Proposition 8 prevents California from fulfilling its constitutional obligation to provide marriages on an equal basis, the court concludes that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional.

There are a couple of striking things about the case. The first is how poorly the pro - Prop 8 side argued it. The anti - gay marriage arguments are weak and easily rebutted to start with, but their presentation of their side, such as it is, was pathetic. They ended up with only two "expert" witnesses in the trial, neither of whom was a qualified expert and both of whom left the judge singularly unimpressed. He said of one:

Blankenhorn's opinions are not supported by reliable evidence or methodology and Blankenhorn failed to consider evidence contrary to his view in presenting his testimony. The court therefore finds the opinions of Blankenhorn to be unreliable and entitled to essentially no weight. (p. 49)

Of the other, he said:

...the court finds that Miller's opinions on gay and lesbian political power are entitled to little weight and only to the extent they are amply supported by reliable evidence. (p. 54)

As for their deposition witnesses, two of them were so damaging to the case that their testimony was entered into evidence by the other side! (p.36)

Wednesday, August 04, 2010

Battle Cry of Freedom is probably the best one-volume history of the Civil War available. Sweeping and well-written, it covers the period from 1850 to the end of the war in 1865.

I was generally familiar with the war itself, but what I found most valuable was McPherson's coverage of the period leading up to the war, where my knowledge was more sketchy. He admirably shows the cleavages in American society during the mid-19th century, differences of class and origin as well as region, along with changes in economic, social, and family life.

McPherson also delves into areas that are probably not as well known today as they should be, things like fugitive slave laws, the influence of Uncle Tom's Cabin, Southern efforts not just to retain but to expand American slavery (not only into US territories but also into the Caribbean and Central America), Bleeding Kansas, and so on. I found the pre-war chapters on those subjects enlightening.

But the core issue, of course, was slavery. Contrary to the somewhat successful efforts of revisionists and Confederate apologists to turn the popular narrative in a different direction, McPherson makes it quite clear that the Civil War was indeed "about" slavery. Yes, there were issues of states rights and regional rivalry involved, and once the war began the rhetoric on both sides changed, but in the run-up to secession and war, it was clear what the real issue was: slavery.

That's the greatest service the book provides. It makes it clear that the revisionists and apologists don't have a leg to stand on. They may claim bias on McPherson's part, and I'd have to agree with them. He clearly thinks that slavery was bad and the South was wrong. Those who think otherwise probably won't like the book.

I've said the writing is good. Here's a sample, the passage I found most moving. Lincoln tours the newly captured Confederate capital:

Lincoln's visit to Richmond produced the most unforgettable scenes of this unforgettable war. With an escort of only ten sailors, the president walked the streets while [Admiral David D.] Porter peered nervously at every window for would-be assassins. But the Emancipator was soon surrounded by an impenetrable cordon of black people shouting "Glory to God! Glory! Glory! Glory!" "Bless the Lord! The great Messiah! I knowed him as soon as I seen him. He's been in my heart four long years. Come to free his children from bondage. Glory, Hallelujah!" Several freed slaves touched Lincoln to make sure he was real. "I know I am free," shouted an old woman, "for I have seen Father Abraham and felt him." Overwhelmed by rare emotions, Lincoln said to one black man who fell on his knees in front of him: "Don't kneel to me. That is not right. You must kneel to God only, and thank Him for the liberty you will enjoy hereafter."

Sitemeter counted 9,525 hits yesterday. (And StatCounter counted 10,204, Google Analytics 9,490, and Blogger 9,815; what's up with that? I don't know, but if anyone asks, StatCounter is right.) That's about what I get in four months usually. (Pathetic, I know.)

So it was quite a shock to check my stats yesterday morning and see a hit count in the thousands. For a second, I thought it was a mistake. In between working, I spent the rest of the day watching the stats go up and reading the comments on reddit.

If I hadn't been so busy, I would have joined reddit and argued with a couple of the commenters there, who didn't really get the post. But I know I would have spent hours doing that (I've done it before!), and I had too much work. So I just read. (A few years ago, I might have done it no matter how much work I had. I guess maybe I'm growing up.)

Oh, one more thing about reddit; they have this thing where you can vote links "up" or "down" if you like them or don't. So I spent the whole day going, "Yay! Some more people liked it!" when my post got more "up" votes and "Oh no! Some more people didn't like it!" when it got more "down" votes. (Not that I'm insecure or anything...)

Tasers were supposed to be an alternative to lethal force for police. The idea was that instead of shooting and killing people, they'd taze them instead. But somewhere along the line, they started to taze people for just about anything.